One of the Krikkitas turned to glance at him and then, loudly, started to scream.
Disconcerted, Velspoor talked over the noise. ‘The Krikkitas seem to believe that the meaning of life for them, indeed, their only purpose, is the obliteration of all other life forms – i.e. us.’
The other delegates howled in fury. The Krikkitas all howled back.
Romana winced and put her fingers in her ears. Diplomacy was terribly loud.
In a magnificent gesture, Velspoor held up a stately tentacle. ‘However, other beings, I ask you to consider this – our vanquished opponents are not inherently evil. Merely … misguided? Deluded? Threatened at a fundamentally psychic level by the rest of existence? These beings, otherwise gentle, passive and utterly tranquil –’ these adjectives went down very badly with the crowd – ‘are in fact, and in this one sole, tragic respect, utterly incapable of tolerating the rest of the Universe. I put it to you that they are the victims –’ this went down really badly, and it was a long time before the shouting and throwing of cups ceased – ‘the victims of a freakish accident of history. It is therefore impossible to consider simply destroying them all.’
By this point, Velspoor had lost the sympathy of the crowd entirely. The jeering and stamping of feet forced him to slither from the stage. As he left, tentacles shielding his upper ganglions from the chairs that were being thrown at him, the old statesbeing made one heartfelt plea before the microphone burst into flames.
‘What is to be done? What is to be done with them?’
As he finished, one of the cloaked Time Lords glided from the shadows for a word with the less angry delegates. A word, naturally, in private and strictly off the record. The Time Lords of Gallifrey wished it to be very gently known that they had a solution.
The Doctor sipped glumly from a cup of tea. Peace conferences always laid on the worst tea.
Romana looked around the crowded hall of squealing and gibbering delegates. For a moment she frowned – had she glimpsed something? She shook her head. Romana didn’t glimpse. She looked things firmly in the eye and she noticed. What was it?
The Doctor was musing. ‘I’d love to know what happens here that’s different from the official history,’
‘So far it seems fairly dull,’ Romana pointed out.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Exactly.’ He pointed to a corridor. ‘The delegates went down here, along with some rather shifty-looking Time Lords. I think that’s where the fun is.’
Romana started down the corridor and paused. ‘Doesn’t fit with the architecture. Too long by about 5.3 metres.’
‘Not the least surprising thing,’ the Doctor said.
The corridor ended in a door. ‘The temperature is much lower here. By ten degrees.’
‘That’s because –’ the Doctor’s ah-ha tone was warming up – ‘the biodome ended 5.3 metres ago. We’re in a trans-dimensional vestibule.’ His eyes were pointing at the door, in as much as eyes could point (and the Doctor’s eyes really could). He grinned.
‘How curious,’ conceded Romana. ‘That door is just begging to be opened.’
‘Isn’t it?’ The Doctor winked.
Romana tried the door. It was locked.
The Doctor knocked on it sharply. ‘Open sesame,’ he boomed.
Nothing happened.
K-9 cleared his throat. ‘Master,’ he said, and shot the door. The beam was a cheery green colour, and the blast played briefly across the surface of the door.
‘Code satisfactorily unlocked,’ the dog remarked and trundled through.
‘I noticed it when we arrived,’ the Doctor said, trying very hard to look casual. ‘I think it’s a TARDIS. I ordered K-9 to crack the 21-tumbler lock.’
‘Very clever, Doctor,’ said Romana dutifully.
The Doctor took her arm and led her through the door.
Behind him, in the shadows, a figure watched the time travellers leave. It was a Krikkitman.
Inside the First Great War TARDIS, a deal was being done, the kind of thing that was never supposed to be seen.
War TARDISes are curious things. Most normal TARDISes assume the characters of their owners. One day, in the far future, Romana would have a TARDIS that was quick, efficient, and delighted in outlandishly daring outer shells. The Doctor’s TARDIS entered rooms loudly and late. That fiendish Time Lord renegade the Master had a TARDIS with black walls, black controls, black doors, black lighting, and even a black cupboard in which he kept all his black cloaks – it was all very impressive, even if he stood no chance of finding his keys.
War TARDISes had no truck with this kind of thing, and instead spent the effort on changing the personality of their owners. The War TARDISes had been designed in the Great and Terrible Wars Against the Vampire Mutations and, along with Bow Ships and Stake Drives, had proved jolly effective at driving out the very last menace of the Old Times. The problem with this was that War TARDISes had been intended as a very expensive, short-term measure. The problem with the problem was that War TARDISes had been understandably equipped with a strong sense of self-preservation. And that was roughly when they’d started influencing their owners.
The Battle Cardinals had begun as serene academics reluctantly dabbling in the art of war, and had rapidly regenerated into hard, bloodthirsty war heroes. Their craft didn’t stop there. Each and every Battle Cardinal became convinced that the fleet of Twelve War TARDISes needed maintaining, keeping on high alert in case there was another battle. This seemed in direct contravention to the new, sacrosanct Time Lord Vow of Strict Non-Interference, but anyone who pointed this out was promptly shouted down.
The war against the Krikkitmen had provided validation for this policy. The naysayers were silenced when they raised the quaint notion that this was the first time the craft had been needed in a millennium, and they could have been kept in trans-dimensional storage rather than in a fully crewed state of constant high alert. The simple fact was that the War TARDISes loved battle, bloodshed, and taking the niceties of space-time out behind the Panopticon bike sheds for a good punching.
The Doctor, Romana and K-9 slipped unnoticed into the First Great War TARDIS. The walls pulsed an angry red, the Battle Cardinals wore red robes, their Conflict Secretaries wore clashing shades of blue, and the normally delicate mushroom of controls had been replaced by three panels, best translated as STOP, GO and BANG.
The Doctor’s voice was hushed. ‘Romana, I think the Peace Conference is being run by a War TARDIS,’ he said.
Romana nodded. ‘There’s no record of that happening.’
‘I don’t like this,’ the Doctor said. He sipped from his cup of tea then put it down on a table. His attention was riveted by Battle Cardinal Melia. Melia was a haughty man, made all the haughtier by his eyes. They had that curiously unfocused look of external bio-control.
‘I believe we have a solution to the conference,’ Melia was saying. Giant screens were lit up with planets, all of them vanishing with dramatic puffs. ‘The Time Lords of Gallifrey have occasionally identified and neutralised certain planets that would, if unchecked, pose a threat to the harmonious development of the Universe.’ He pointed without even looking to the vanishing planets behind him. ‘Vixos, Erle’s World, the Awful Mutane Symbology, and, of course, Planet 5 have all been scrubbed from the Cosmos. We propose a similar approach to Krikkit. The robot armies, the weapons, the people will all be returned there and then the entire planet will be neutralised.’
‘Destroyed?’ asked one of the delegates.
Cardinal Melia chuckled a witless little chuckle that he’d clearly been practising. ‘Of course not. There will be nothing to destroy. Believe me, it will be a harmless, instantaneous process. If you wish, we can place some of you on Krikkit in order to act as impartial observers. Just step forward and it shall be done,’ He smiled the oddest little smile and all the delegates took a hasty step back.
‘Surely there’s a Plan B?’ ventured someone.
Romana looked around, uncertain as
to who had spoken.
‘There’s always a Plan B,’ insisted the voice. Surely it was another of the Battle Cardinals?
‘Yes,’ the delegates said. Born diplomats, they loved a Plan B. Especially if it involved compromise and could, in the inevitable press conferences, be declared a triumph.
Battle Cardinal Melia spun round, trying to see who it was who’d defied him. He turned back to the delegates, his oddly toothy smile twitching into a snarl before subsiding placidly.
‘There is an alternative. You might consider it even more final.’
‘Well, that doesn’t sound ominous,’ muttered the Doctor.
Romana didn’t reply. Her attention was taken by a pen someone had left on a table. The nib of the pen was marvellously sharp, just itching to be plunged into someone. She reached out towards it and the Doctor swatted her hand away.
‘I think we should get out of here,’ the Doctor whispered. ‘These War TARDISes had a nasty habit of getting into your mind. Before you know it, you’ll be annexing things.’
Back in the Great Hall of Endless Debate, a presentation was beginning. Cardinal Melia slipped back in, merging into the shadows as only a man in a large red cloak and collar could.
The President of something or other was droning on.
‘… Our solution is that the planet of Krikkit is to be forever encased in what can only be called, again, Slow Time. All life within the envelope will continue as normal, but at an infinitely slower pace relative to the Universe outside. All light is deflected around the envelope so that it remains invisible and, obviously, impenetrable to the rest of the Universe. Escape from the envelope is impossible unless it is unlocked from the outside.
‘The action of Entropy indicates that eventually the whole Universe will run itself down. And at some point in the unimaginably far future, first life, and then matter will cease to exist. At that time the planet of Krikkit and its sun will emerge from the Slow Time envelope and enjoy a blissful, solitary existence in the twilight of the Universe.’
The audience thought about that for a bit. Then they applauded. For the people who wanted a humane solution it was enviably clever. For the people who wanted to wipe the whole planet out, they could also swallow it, if they chewed. And, for the remaining undecided people, it also ticked quite a few boxes. It was elegant and thoughtful. It really justified their hotel bills.
Even the people of Krikkit in their cage looked relieved at the proposal. They were being offered a chance to get the Universe they’d always wanted.
Romana looked shrewdly at the Doctor. This was a bit harder than you’d think, as he’d pushed his hat down over his head, so she was making firm eye contact with a brim.
‘You don’t like it, do you, Doctor?’
‘No.’ His voice sounded only a little muffled by wool. ‘I never like a solution that’s so neat that you can’t help but say, “What could possibly go wrong?”’
‘And something has gone terribly wrong, hasn’t it?’
‘Something’s definitely up.’
Romana watched the delegates bubble enthusiastically out of the hall to go and congratulate themselves in joint press conferences and give confidential briefings about how it had actually been their idea.
‘I can’t see the Time Lords any more.’
‘Of course not.’ The Doctor’s smile crept through his hat. ‘They’ve just persuaded the Universe to seal an entire planet up until the end of time in an envelope. Of course they’ve scarpered. But what were they up to – were they hiding something on that planet?’
‘Hmm,’ said Romana. ‘We could ask Cardinal Melia.’
‘We could,’ said the Doctor. ‘Only there’s a problem with that. Shortly after the peace conference, he disappeared from space and time along with his War TARDIS. Disappeared completely.
It was at this point that K-9 interrupted. ‘There is a presence at the far end of the hall, approaching rapidly.’
Romana looked up.
A Krikkitman was bearing down on them.
CHAPTER NINE
RUNNING ON IMAGINATION
The Krikkitman marched towards them through the delegates, who were all somehow oblivious to its ominous, relentless progress. Inside its dark helmet an angry red glow appeared.
‘Doctor?’
‘Hmm?’ The Doctor habitually ignored his dog four times and his best friend three.
‘Run!’
Well, unless she said that.
There is a fine art to running from a monster. Romana would have said the Doctor was sometimes quite casual about it, only you could argue he was quite casual about most things. The Doctor was quite casual about flying his time machine; he was quite casual about the laws of gravity; he was quite casual about the sell-by dates on yoghurt.
The Doctor was not so casual now. Faced with an ultimate killing machine and childhood nightmare, he just took to his heels and ran.
‘That thing is impossible,’ Romana announced, as they ducked under an exploding balcony. ‘I thought all the Krikkitmen had been deactivated.’
‘Clearly not.’ The Doctor threw himself under a burning velvet seat. ‘To be is to be perceived and to be shot at is to be very much perceived.’
‘But no one else is reacting to it! Surely there should be pandemonium.’
‘Some kind of neuro-shielding,’ the Doctor speculated. ‘What’s odd is that it’s after us, not the peace conference. And normally, I find any attention flattering.’
They tore round a pillar and up a winding ramp, K-9 following behind them.
‘K-9,’ the Doctor called desperately over his shoulder, ‘could you shoot that robot?’
‘Negative, Master.’ The dog sounded regretful. ‘This unit does not contain the firepower to impede it.’
‘Not even a tiny bit?’ The Doctor was panting just a little as a stained-glass window exploded above them.
‘I’m sort of wondering what we do when we run out of building,’ said Romana, as they found another ramp and ran further up. ‘Hope it falls off?’
‘Hardly our worst plan, is it?’ The Doctor kept on running.
‘Negative.’ The dog trundled behind them.
They reached a narrow metal walkway above the debating chamber. Down below them, oblivious to the explosions above, several thousand delegates continued to delegate. K-9 glided onto the walkway, declared it structurally sound, and then whizzed on ahead.
‘No, don’t wait for me,’ gasped the Doctor. The climbing had taken a lot out of him, and the view down had taken quite a bit more.
‘Not afraid of heights, are you?’ Romana skipped nimbly onto the gantry.
‘No, no, that would be ridiculous. I’m afraid of a fall from one.’ The Doctor set out onto the narrow walkway. It really didn’t feel that safe. That was the problem with these new alloys – far too lightweight to feel trustworthy. Like running on cardboard. No, what this needed was something with a bit of heft. Like good old iron. The Doctor was looking very hard at a little plaque and absolutely not at the floor such a very long way below. The plate said ‘Strengthulon – Your lightweight, malleable, and conductive friend’, which was every bit as bad as the Doctor feared. The struts actually bounced beneath him, in a way that was wickedly unhelpful, as if he was escaping across a tambourine.
‘Doctor, hurry up,’ called Romana. She and K-9 had, by some miracle, made it to the far end.
‘I’m finding running on this marvellously novel,’ the Doctor shouted brightly, inwardly hating ever wobbling step. He edged forward a little further. ‘No sense in rushing it.’
‘Yes there is,’ urged Romana.
‘Hostile is 30.3 metres away from you, Master,’ butted in K-9.
Romana squinted. ‘30.4, surely.’
‘Not the important bit,’ the Doctor said, turning to look at the Krikkitman.
It had staggered to the edge of the gantry. Its helmet lit up with a dark red smirk.
‘Not good,’ the Doctor muttered. He stopped runni
ng.
The Krikkitman bent down towards the base of the gantry, fastened a metal glove around a strut and twisted it. The walkway pitched to one side, and the Doctor found himself flung into a haphazard crawl, balancing himself against the railings.
‘Too much of a flexible friend by half,’ he muttered, edging from one narrow railing to the next. Bits of his body kept dropping through the surprisingly wide gaps. Also, his brain was telling him he’d forgotten something. Flexible, yes. Lightweight, yes. Malleable? Got that too. And, also, um …
The Krikkitman unsheathed one of its gloved fingers, exposing a sparking skeletal tip. It scraped it across the bridge, sending sparks racing across it.
Ah yes. Conductive. The Doctor screamed in a perfect mixture of surprise and agony as he fell. He was only held in place by a loop of his scarf, which was smoking.
‘Doctor, what are you doing?’ shouted Romana.
The Doctor tried coming up with a pithy reply, but his jaws were too busy grinding against each other. ‘Mrmgh,’ he said and toyed with letting go there and then. If he had to have last words, why not go out with an enigma?
Instead, he wrapped the ends of his scarf around his hands and clawed his way back up onto the bridge.
At the far end, the Krikkitman leaned back and roared, a horrid metallic screech. It threw itself onto the walkway and scampered towards them at an alarming speed.
‘This way,’ said Romana.
She dragged them into a small projection booth. A beam of light was still playing the last slide of the presentation from the Great Hall onto a glass. The Krikkitman was banging on the door behind them.
‘So,’ said the Doctor, ‘We’re in a locked room. Any ideas, K-9?’
‘Master—’
‘I don’t suppose you could blast a hole in the wall?’
‘Structural analysis suggests—’
‘Never mind.’ The Doctor started chewing the end of his scarf. It really did taste awful. The bitterness helped concentrate his mind and distracted him from the beating on the metal door. He beamed suddenly. ‘What we need to be is remarkably clever.’
Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen Page 7
